Comment The tool bag burned up on August 3, 2009 (Score 1) 221
Too late. That tool bag is already back to earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidemarie_Stefanyshyn-Piper#Lost_tool_bag_during_spacewalk
Comment It's just a Potemkin rocket (Score 1) 383
It is designed and built for show, not for real testing. The Ares 1X is just a Potemkin rocket to make a good impression on congress and the American public. Any test data is just incidental.
There are so many things that need to be tested, but this launch tests almost nothing. Unfortunately this is what I have come to expect of NASA: good PR, solid engineering, poor vision.
Please let the president and NASA administrators choose the Augustine flexible path using EELV rockets so that we can get something accomplished in addition to burning money.
There are so many things that need to be tested, but this launch tests almost nothing. Unfortunately this is what I have come to expect of NASA: good PR, solid engineering, poor vision.
Please let the president and NASA administrators choose the Augustine flexible path using EELV rockets so that we can get something accomplished in addition to burning money.
Comment Paper ballots are not immune to software problems (Score 1) 406
Optical scan machines have software bugs too!
Humboldt County, California has an innovative program to put on the Internet scanned images of all the optical-scan ballots cast in the county. In the online archive, citizens found 197 ballots that were not included in the official results of the November election. Investigation revealed that the ballots disappeared from the official count due to a programming error in central tabulation software
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/election-transparency-project-finds-ballot-counting-bug
Comment RIAA Curve (Score 1) 280
A single significant innovation: The RIAA Curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization for correct playback of vinyl records.
Now, of course, they did patent the RIAA equalization curve so that others would have to pay money to make their records sound good, but it was a significant innovation.
Now, of course, they did patent the RIAA equalization curve so that others would have to pay money to make their records sound good, but it was a significant innovation.
Submission + - RSA keys factored, DMCA takedowns issued (sunshinepress.org) 2
An anonymous reader writes: A month ago, ticalc.org reported smart factoring of the 512-bit RSA key used by TI to sign their TI-83+ OS, which opens the door to seamless installation of open-source third-party OS on TI-83+ calculators. Since then, two other keys found in other TI calculators have been factored by a distributed effort.
Several days ago, TI sent DMCA takedown notices to several sites mentioning the keys and their factors. All three keys factored so far have been posted to Wikileaks, and the effort to factor the remaining ones is going on.
Submission + - Military Helmet Design Contributes to Brain Damage (physicscentral.com)
BuzzSkyline writes: "Improvements in helmets have helped modern soldiers survive bullets and blasts that would have killed them in past wars. But increasing numbers of soldiers are suffering long lasting brain damage from explosions, partly as a result of what appears to be a flaw in helmet designs. Although the blast itself may not accelerate the brain inside a soldier's head enough to cause injury, shockwaves that make it through the space between a helmet and a soldier's head can cause the skull to flex, leading to ripples in the skull that can create damaging pressures in the brain. Simulations that relied on "code originally designed to simulate how a detonated weapon rattles a building or tank" could lead to new helmets that reduce the traumatic brain injuries that many soldiers suffer as a result of improvised explosive devices and other moderate-sized blasts. The research is due to be published in Physical Review Letters, but a preprint is currently available on the Physics ArXiv."
Submission + - Solar Roadways geta DOT funding. (autoblog.com) 1
mikee805 writes: Solar roadways a project to replace the over 25,000 square miles of road in the US with drivable solar panels just received $100K in funding from DOT for the 1st 12ft by 12ft prototype panel. Each panel consists of three layers: a base layer with data and power cabled running through it, an electronics layer with an array of LEDs, solar collectors, and capacitors and finally the glass road surface. With data and power cables the solar roadway was the potential to replace a lot of our aging infrastructure. With just a 15% efficiency this would project 3 time what US uses annually in energy! Also to head off a few problems the building costs are estimated to be competitive with traditional roads and the roads would heat themselves in the winter to keep snow from accumulating. Interview video here.
Comment Tooling and gaging (Score 1) 901
Finally some sanity. There are places in the tooling and gaging where the tolerances are tight and a change over to metric requires a complete re-engineering of the tolerance stackup.
Even still, there is no reason why the project should be driven by US customary units for every thing.
Re-state the external interfaces in Metric.
Build everything that is new in Metric.
Retain US customary units in unchanged assemblies.
DO THE PROGRAM LEVEL WORK IN METRIC.
Even still, there is no reason why the project should be driven by US customary units for every thing.
Re-state the external interfaces in Metric.
Build everything that is new in Metric.
Retain US customary units in unchanged assemblies.
DO THE PROGRAM LEVEL WORK IN METRIC.
Comment Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal? (Score 5, Informative) 464
The problem here is that utilities are currently trying to build new "Clean Coal" generating plants that have no carbon capture at all.
The "Clean Coal" phrase as Chu used it in the article is very different than the "Clean Coal" phrase used by my local utility trying to build a new plant. I would not mind Chu's "Clean Coal", but I do not want what the utilities are currently calling "Clean Coal".
The "Clean Coal" phrase as Chu used it in the article is very different than the "Clean Coal" phrase used by my local utility trying to build a new plant. I would not mind Chu's "Clean Coal", but I do not want what the utilities are currently calling "Clean Coal".
Microsoft Office 2007 In Linux With WINE 224
Kenneth Reitz writes "Wouldn't it be lovely to have a nice, clean installation of Microsoft's Office 2007 Suite to run on your Ubuntu Linux Distribution? For some people, this is the only thing that truly holds them back from an all-Linux environment ... But not anymore! We have compiled a nice, concise set of instructions to help guide you along."
Comment Re:First chance to see if Obama is a retard or not (Score 1) 189
The DIRECT team has written quite a bit about what is needed to change over from the Ares I/V architecture to the Jupiter architecture. While we would be throwing away all of the design work on the Ares I upper stage, making the change at this point still has a quicker return to flight. Having better rockets is a side benefit.
The J2 rocket work and 5 segment SRB work will come in handy for building the Jupiter 232.
There is no reason to 'stay the course' of the AresI/V. It is time to choose the rocket that is faster, better, and cheaper.
The J2 rocket work and 5 segment SRB work will come in handy for building the Jupiter 232.
There is no reason to 'stay the course' of the AresI/V. It is time to choose the rocket that is faster, better, and cheaper.
Comment Re:Space Elevator (Score 1) 189
A space elevator is a great idea. We should build one as soon as we can produce enough unobtainium to make the tether.
We should be doing the materials research needed for a space elevator, but the question now is about how to get to space for the next ten years. A space elevator will (almost certainly) not be build-able in that time, but we can launch rockets.
Right now we need rockets, the question is which rocket. Space elevators, fusion drives, and other fanciful stuffs are things we should think about and research, but they are not the things we can build today.
We should be doing the materials research needed for a space elevator, but the question now is about how to get to space for the next ten years. A space elevator will (almost certainly) not be build-able in that time, but we can launch rockets.
Right now we need rockets, the question is which rocket. Space elevators, fusion drives, and other fanciful stuffs are things we should think about and research, but they are not the things we can build today.
Behind the Cogent-Sprint Depeering 325
An anonymous reader brings an update to Sprint's depeering with Cogent, which we discussed a few days back — namely, Sprint's side of the story. According to them, no free peering contract had ever existed, Cogent refused to pay the bills to exchange traffic, and after a year Sprint gave Cogent 30 days notice of their intent to disconnect. During this 30-day period, when one or two connections (out of ten) per week were shut down, Cogent made no alternate arrangements to alleviate the impact on their customers — but they had a press release ready when Sprint snipped the final wire. It will be interesting to see how Cogent responds.
Submission + - Microsoft Building Emacs.Net (zdnet.com) 1
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "In a move sure to reopen old internet flamewars, Microsoft apparently plans to build something described only as "Emacs.Net" Brought to light in a Microsoft employee's short and cryptic blog post, little is known about it except that it's some kind of "development tool / IDE / text editor" though that hasn't stopped ZDNet bloggers from speculating wildly. Hopefully, whatever they make will be able to open files larger than 64 KB — it's not enough for everybody."
